When summer comes around the boys are excited about leaving school and buying some fireworks. Their fun ends when they discover that fireworks have been banned, so Ned and Jimbo try to save Independence Day by smuggling in illegal fireworks from Mexico. Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison can't find Mr. Hat, and Cartman takes swimming lessons.

Recap

In this episode, Mr. Hat disappears, and Mr. Garrison replaces him with Mr. Twig.

Episode Quotes

Stan: I saw in this movie once, where this guy stuck a firecracker up a cat's butt.Kyle: Cool! Maybe we can do that to Cartman's cat.Cartman: Eeyy! If you so much as touch Kitty's ass, I'll put firecrackers in your nut sack, and blow your balls out all over your panties!Stan: Jesus, Cartman!

Mr. Garrison: Sometimes Mr. Hat liked to pretend he was in a sauna with Brett Favre, and a bottle of Thousand Island dressing.Psychiatrist: That I did not need to know.

Barbrady: (peeks out from under the Mayor's desk) Oh I'm sorry Mayor, but I couldn't find the little man in the boat.The Mayor: Well, keep looking! (pushes Barbrady back down)

Episode Goofs

In this episode, Pip reveals that he's an orphan (both his parents died), but in season one's "Mr. Hankey the Christmas Poo," Pip was singing with an adult couple that looked like they could have been his parents (unless they were relatives or Pip was just part of a group of carolers).

According to Charlie, a snake lasts three minutes, and his giant snake is 5000 times as big. Given Creamy Goodness' numbers (over a half-mile wide and 20 stories high - a story usually equals 10 feet), the dimensions of a regular snake are 6 3/8 inches in diameter and ½ inch high. Still, at normal speed, a giant snake would run out in 15000 minutes, or 10 days, 10 hours. For a snake to last until November 1999 (at the time this episode premiered), the rate of consumption is one regular snake every 140 minutes (2 hours, 20 minutes) - if the ash produced doesn't smother the snake first - or the dimensions must be 1.8 miles wide by 72 stories high.

Cultural References

The Mayor: Wait a minute! We're gonna need an orchestra to play the Stars and Stripes!

The Mayor is referring to the song "Stars and Stripes Forever," a march written by John Philip Souza in 1896.

The Mayor: Yes! Get the school principal on the phone! And we need somebody to dress up like Uncle Remus!

Uncle Remus is a fictional character created by writer Joel Chandler Harris in 1881. Uncle Remus was a kindly old slave who told folktales to the white children gathered around him. Harris eventually took much criticism for the character because for many, the slave dialect and "Uncle" character seemed patronizing, and even racist.

Visual: Menudo shirt

The fireworks stand clerk is wearing a Menudo shirt. Menudo was a Puerto-Rican boy band, and is where singer Ricky Martin started his musical career.